Summer In The Parables - [Matthew 9:17]

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Father God, we thank you for this morning how What a gorgeous day it is and we thank you for the air conditioning that we can sit here in comfort
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But Lord, we pray especially for for those who are traveling right now on vacation and whatever
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We just ask for your protection over them as they they travel especially my son who is now in Singapore and Indonesia on a ship
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Being a medical Help to all those people in that area We just pray for his safety as he's doing that along with all the others and on that vessel
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We pray for our pastor who's away and we pray for a blessing for him as well as his family as he
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Ministers elsewhere and gets a well -earned rest. We leave these things in your care in Jesus name
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Amen Am I too loud or something? I'm not used to this so Okay I've titled this parable as you know, we're studying the parables during this summer interlude and Minus a very short one
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Very very short. So if you turn to Matthew 9 16 Now There's three parables.
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I mean, it's the same parable is in three Gospels, but we'll just read Matthew 9 and just that that one and It says no man puts a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment for the patch pulls away from the garment and the worst here results
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Nor do men put new wine into old wineskins Otherwise the wineskins will burst and the wine pours out and the wineskins are ruined
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But they put new wine into fresh wineskins and both are preserved Now I'm not going to give you a history of wine per se but I just want to you to understand that Wine has been made by man for thousands of years
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Scientists have gone back at least 3 ,000 BC where people have made wine And I'm not going to get into the controversy that some
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Christians believe that Jesus never took wine He never partook of it That's really historically that's that's not very accurate because Wine was the the table
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Liquid or the table refreshment of its day and for many many years. That's been the case
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The reason why this Parable is so short is because the message is simple the message has you have the old the
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Old wineskin and a new patch for instance now You wonder what does what's the significance of that?
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What's what's the point of having this this parable? well give you a little history of Goatskin which was usually used for these these storage of wine the grapes were crushed
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By hand or with a with a pestle There was various reasons for for wine mainly because it was cheap
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Wine grew very very well in Israel in those days as well as the Middle East and further on up in Europe But as soon as the wine was as soon as the grapes were crushed yeast and those the wines and the
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Grapeskins started to ferment almost immediately the the crushed grapes start to ferment and when they ferment the the liquid that's developed from that starts to expand at volume and If you have an old wineskin, which has already been stretched from the previous year and you put new wine in it it's going to burst and The principle here that Jesus used was you put this on This old wineskin which has been stretched and you put a new piece on there, which has not been stretched
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Something's going to happen the the wineskin will burst. I don't know how they they
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Made wineskins out of I mean wine out of and put in into these
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Skins of goats and then made them tight I don't know how they did that because they had to sew these things up Out of you know, this piece of leather from it from the goat how they did that.
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I don't know But obviously there's a principle here You can't put an old thing on to you can't put a new thing onto an old thing now
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There's another verse also that talks about Linen we won't get into that but cloth we you can't put a
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New piece of cloth as a patch on an old Shrunken piece of cloth that's we won't get into that but we're gonna concentrate on the on the wine
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And wine as I say was used extensively throughout the Middle East not just in Israel, but all the way through Europe and Israel is very very common one of the things that the
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Greeks were very Smart about and you know people think that people back then weren't very smart wrong
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People were just as intelligent back then as they are today. What they didn't have is a lot of the technology
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But the Greeks Developed a system of storing wine in what is called amphora.
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I these are clay pots These were pots that you could put wine in and they could expand the stuff could expand in it, but they would allow the space in the amphora to make up for the growth in the volume of the wine and And just to give you an example how wine can ferment and Any any alcoholic beverage is the same way.
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I remember when I was a kid You know back then I Was just a young boy during the time of the
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Depression. No, I'm an older guy and We live with my grandparents my father mother and myself
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I was an only child till I was 13. We live with my grandparents for a good many years, but one time we were
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Having having supper and all of a sudden we heard this boom What's that Did it again?
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I'm sudden boom. Boom. Boom, you know, we heard some more. Well come to find out my grandfather liked beer
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Well during the Depression money was pretty scarce So what he did is he rounded up all kinds of bottles empty bottles and bought a little capping machine and you've seen these kind Of caps there don't metal cap that you put on the bottle and it kind of crimps the the cap onto the onto the bottle
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That's what he did Well, he had never made beer before and what had happened is that the beer started to ferment and the ballot the bottle doesn't expand and He didn't leave the the bottle empty enough for the firm and fermented beer to expand so all of a sudden they started popping and Boom, boom.
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Boom. Boom, and I didn't go down the basement. My mother wouldn't let me But she said it was the most awful mess you ever saw
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I mean all those bottles and I don't know how many he had because I never went down to see it But all of these bottles all started popping and they said well, we're not gonna go down there till everything's done
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So it was a mess I mean, I my grandfather was just absolutely dismayed because all the work he went through to to make his beer just didn't work out
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But that's how an example of how the fermentation process really makes the the liquid expand and volume and that was the same same case with these these wine
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Skins that the the wine was stored into unless you allowed it to expand It was disaster you would you would have the the wine skin burst and the wine would be lost
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Now the principle behind all this is here again You can't put something new on something old and in this case wine skins but the principle applies spiritually here that Jesus was upset with the the religion of its day.
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The Jewish religion was Quite prevalent and There was a reason why why
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Jesus? was teaching against putting The new religion that he's teaching this new covenant actually that he was teaching on to the old religion
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Now how many people here have been converted from another religion? Oh my about half
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That's quite surprising well, so was I I was a I was a person who
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Was raised Catholic and I have some instances about being raised Catholic that might be interesting to you
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But the the object is that Jesus was teaching that the old old
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Jewish religion had been Embedded with some things that were
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Improper that these are not things that God wanted into the Jewish religion, you know in your little handout here
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It says here. The main issue is that Jesus taught the Jewish religion has been Infiltrative with rules or beliefs that were contrary to what
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God intended for man The parable emphasizes the principle that this is like patching new covenant truth onto the old mosaic ceremonial forms he emphasized that a true faith in God had been corrupted by the
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Jewish culture and Religion of that day and one needed to turn away from it now
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John 3 3 John 3 16 John 4 21 24 John 5 23, they all point out the fact that There's a new way to do things.
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Now. Let me just turn to John for a minute. Well now
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John 3 3 Says that Jesus answered and said to Nicodemus Truly truly
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I say to you unless one is born again. He could not see the kingdom of God and Jesus started teaching this right off the bat that there has to be a change.
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There has to be a change in a person's life and John 316 obviously, you know that for God so loved the world that he only he gave his only begotten
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Son So that believing that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life now
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The other verses I've got there. We won't spend time on that They all have the same message that you've got to have a new conversion you've got to have a new way of looking at things and I'd like to go through some of the things that a positive about Judaism God had a plan now in the book of Deuteronomy, it tells us how he gave all kinds of rules and and Things to do in the way of worshiping
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God these were kind of like rules and regulations how you conduct the worship service what you do with various things like incense and How that is handled
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Only a few people were allowed to go into the tabernacle as the
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Jews were Roaming in the wilderness. There's a whole long list. We won't go into all those those rules
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Some of them were good and some of the principles That God gave the the people of Israel because he selected them.
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He selected them as a as a special people Some of the things that are positive there's a
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Publication that you can go on the internet internet today that matches what God really intended for the
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Jewish people these are Some of the things that I picked out from that Grouping of the 13 principles.
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There is a belief in one God who's the creator of all things He always existed and always will be now we can we can relate to that as Christians The Creator is not a body and has no form whatsoever
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So God is a spirit. It tells us that many places in the Bible. He is he is not a a person with material substance like like we have
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The Torah now you've probably heard the term term Torah before the
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Jews are very Diligent about Recopying the
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Torah, you know, every synagogue has a Torah that's wrapped up. It's it's he's
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Sheepskins again with writing on them that's been copied by by scribes. It's very very precious to the to the
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Jews It says here that the first four five books of the
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Old Testament are the Torah They will not be changed since they were since they were given to Moses And it says that all the works of the prophets are true.
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I think we can relate to that The Creator as they call them, they don't use the word
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God they carry over the tradition of not naming Yahweh per se The Creator knows all the deeds of men and their thoughts
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The Messiah will come someday There will be a revival of the dead someday.
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No, not all the Jews in Jesus time believe that but that's that's just some of the the positive aspects of the
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Jewish religion in Jesus time Then we can look at the net that's the negative the negatives of coming up now
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Anybody have any comment about what we've covered so far about the positive aspects of Judaism Maybe you know people who are
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Jewish and maybe you've learned some things from them What are some of the things that you know about Jewish people today?
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Very conscious of what's Jewish and what's not Jewish. Excellent. Very thrifty.
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Okay, we're getting into the personalities of people Yeah, they they know how to control and handle their money.
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That's for sure. I mean, that's a that's a trait. That's They've been that's not necessarily what they wanted to do but in Europe where most most
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Jews who Live in Israel today came from It was imposed by them by the fact that they could not open very many businesses on their own.
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They had to get involved with businesses that was Not encroaching on other people and finance was one that was that was very prominent in Europe The Jews also in Germany could not name their own names that the
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German government Insisted that Jews in Germany had names like Schwartz Steinberg, you know the typical
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Germanic type of names that you you're accustomed to so they were repressed so they use their their best methods of getting away from that Okay, they today
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You're thinking of today the the fact that they a lot of the Jews today are secular Many Jews have lost what they have because they don't believe in the kingdom of heaven that can
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I sum that up? Okay You know one of the things that we saw when my wife and I were traveling in Israel a few years ago
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It is very secular in Israel today and I don't want to emphasize Israel of today because we're the lesson is really about the
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Israel and the beliefs of Judaism back in Jesus time But today you can go to Israel and on the
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Sabbath everything's supposed to be closed Well, not quite. I mean even the
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Islamic people Observe the Sabbath. So Saturday is really not a day of business.
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In fact the church we went to Observed its its worship service on Saturday because Sunday was a day of regular day of business
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But you could go on the outskirts of Jerusalem and the shopping malls are there
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Shopping malls were packed. I mean they not everybody observed the Sabbath It was just a you know business was as usual on the
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Sabbath and in these malls but going back to the Jews of Jesus time some of the negative aspects
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One of them is faulty doctrines That's one thing that that crept in that Jesus did not like in fact he despised some of the the the rules that were established by the the
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Pharisees and This this would these the the Talmud is what this was called
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There's a set of rules and regulations and this page after page after page of rules and regulations that if you ever want to get
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Into that the Internet is fine with that kind of thing. I just want to go through just a few the negative aspects
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These were written by various rabbi rabbis and the Jews in those days
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Considered these the words of the Living God they figured that these this the Talmud with all these rules and regulations by These rabbis were right from the
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Word of God. I mean God himself wrote these things through through these rabbis Some of the rules for instance were how many how far you could walk on a
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Sabbath? There was I don't remember what the distance is but it's very specific and I think pastor one time mentioned about if you go to Israel and You go to the hotel on the
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Sabbath. You can't punch the buttons and go to your floor It's all automatic because punching buttons is considered work.
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So therefore you can't work on the Sabbath So you have to sit there in the elevator and go one two, three four, you know, the elevator stops at each floor
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Because that's considered work if you push buttons they know the rules and regulations have gone
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Cuckoo, I mean, they're really Immense if you really get into it, there's thousands of rules and regulations, but some of the the most radical for instance
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There's one a heathen who store studies the Torah deserves death. It's the inheritance of God to the
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Jews only Now that's that's taking what God said you are a chosen people and expanding it, you know
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Far beyond what what God intended? I mean, you know, yes God had rules about when they when the
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Israel it Israelites were and the desert and they were going to the promised land They were supposed to kill all the people in a certain area and they disobeyed and didn't do that So God's punishment is still held in that regard
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Now another one is a Jew should and must make a false oath When the goyim asks if our books contain anything against them
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Now the goyim is a Hebrew term for a non Jew. No, we are goyim.
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I mean Even by today's standards where there were the goys But they said if if a if a
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Gentile studies the Torah He deserves to be killed Well, Jesus did not agree with that obviously and later on you you know in the
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Bible if you if your study room I'm going to it to that today, but the Gentiles have a special place in in God's heart today in Another faulty doctrine.
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It says when the Messiah comes he will have 2 ,800 slaves That is completely unbiblical.
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There's nothing in the Bible that says anything about when the Messiah comes he's going to have 2 ,800 slaves This is strictly
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Imagination of the rabbis that concluded this it's almost like the the idea that when a
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Muslim is Martyred he goes to heaven directly and he's going to have all kinds of virgins as his his playmates up there in heaven
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There's nothing in the Bible about that that is strictly something that was there was I don't even know if it's in the
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Quran but it's certainly something that is Adhered to by these Muslim extremists who blow themselves up another faulty doctrine
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The Jewish nation is the only nations Selected by God while all the rest are hateful and contemptible
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And then if if a goy killed a goy or a Jew he can be killed, but if a Jew kills a goy he's not responsible
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Now, can you imagine that well, you know if you really carry that to extreme Jews could kill
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Gentiles At will and that's not that's not permissible by by our standards today
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Says a Jew may violate but not marry a non -Jewish girl. He can treat her as a piece of meat Now the
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Torah was the Rules given by God directly to Moses, but the
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Talmud is rules devised by man and There's emphasis on the works there's emphasis on the legalisms by the leaders belief that God rewards those who couldn't punish who do good and punish those who transgress his commandments the emphasis in Jewish religion of the day of Jesus was emphasis on doing things in other words works
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Legalisms following rules that was there was the situation of Jesus time But in spite of that there were people who still believed in in God Directly.
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I mean you can you can look at some of the history of The Jews even before for Jesus think of some people who who believed in God regardless of these these things that hindered
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The growth of Judaism think of some things that were The people rather than the people think of the some of the people who believe
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God who? Cornelius, okay.
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Yeah, they that Simeon and Anna what happened to them?
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What? They'll do they were gonna recognize the Messiah when he comes but they also dedicated the child didn't they
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Anybody else No, I can I can think of all kinds of people
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John the Baptist. I mean, there's a man that you know, I grew up in a
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French Canadian home and French Canadians if you aware of that at all
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Jean Baptiste is a very very common name in Canada and in Quebec Jean Baptiste is a you know,
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John the Baptist is It's so common. It's almost as common as Joseph and Mary but Those were names given to most children back in the days when when
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Catholicism was really strong in Canada. It's not today Not today. Yep.
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Oh, there was a Good remnant of people who believed in God directly without getting entangled with all the rules and that's what
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Jesus taught with his disciples I mean, in fact, there's one instance Just before the end of the parable of the wineskins
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Jesus was actually being criticized by the the Jewish leaders of the day.
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Well, how come your disciples don't fast and And that the custom in those days was to fast twice a week well, that's that's not according to Mosaic law my mosaic law in the
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Torah says that you will fast during the days of atonement Doesn't say anything about doing anything during the week
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So they've taken what was a was a law for the day of atonement and stretched it to be more religious
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They wanted to they wanted to show these these leaders wanted to show that how religious they are because they fasted twice a week
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And The hypocrisy of the leaders was what really Jesus emphasized during his ministry
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He wanted people to believe in God from their hearts not because of the their
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Following rules shall we say in Colossians 2 23 it says especially important of verse 23 do not subject yourselves to regulations according to the commandments and doctrines of men in Romans 11 says 25 through 27 it talks about a partial hardening of Israel which has happened until the fullness of the
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Gentiles has come in Now legalisms. I mean we're gonna get into some legalisms on the next page now when the
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Catholic religion started really Christianity obviously started with Christ Converting men and then
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Paul was the was one of the Apostles who was very very strong in working with Gentiles and many
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Gentiles as you know the book of Acts tells us in many places how many how many people were actually converted because of the preaching of the word
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But a lot of carryover stuff from from the Jewish religion to Catholicism exists today
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The priesthood What does the Bible teach about priesthood today for believers? We're all priests priesthood of believers not like in the
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Old Testament where a small group of men called the Levites ministered in the the tent in the tabernacle that was moved from place to place during the 40 -year
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Trump through the wilderness the priesthood
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Would carry it over to the Catholics and the Catholics today believe in the intercession of the priest before God in other words you have a man a woman or a child praying
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The only way that can be a good prayer is to go through the priest and the priest will pray for you to God That's a carryover from the
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Jewish religion Now I remember when I was a kid I Grew up in a very very predominantly
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French Catholic neighborhood But there was a lot of kids that lived in that area who weren't
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French and they weren't Catholic necessarily but one of the one time we
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As kids we were like 12 13 something like that boys and girls and we were discussing, you know religion what's the difference between Catholic and Protestant and One of the girls was
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Protestant and one of the the boys I was friends with He went to a an
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Irish Catholic school, even though he was Polish But he said
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The girl asked him. Well, what's the difference between us and The Catholic boy pipes up.
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Well Protestants have no beliefs. I Said no beliefs. There's something wrong with that equation and even at 12 years old, you know
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I knew it was something wrong with that statement But that's the kind of teaching that the
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Catholic Church Indoctrinated its children when I went to a Catholic school The French Catholic school, by the way, we had that drummed into us that the
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Catholic Church is the only right one It's the only true church, you know, you're not saved unless you're a
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Catholic In fact Confession is one of the the doctrines of the
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Catholic Church and It's it's kind of faded out It still exists today.
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But when I was a kid, it was much much more prominent In fact, I was visiting my cousins or they went to an
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Irish Catholics school and They said well, we got to go to communion.
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I said well when in the French Catholic school You had all your classes like mathematics and English and so forth all in the morning in the afternoon
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We had religious classes and French language Well the way they did it in those days.
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I learned all of my prayers in French and You know the
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Our Father and the Hail Mary and you know, the Apostles Creed was all Learned up here in French, but it was rote
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I mean it was all you know I had to say this every time you went to confession you said the litany of these these prayers, you know
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Our Father won't bear a JPC, you know Yeah You know, so we've my cousins wanted to go to the church and have confession.
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I said, well, I only learned my prayers in French They saw well ask the priest so we went in and asked the priest and I said, you know
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I only know my prayers in French and he says oh, that's alright. He says I know some French You can you can tell me and I'll understand.
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Well, I went in said my my usual litany and Then I asked him a question in French He didn't know what
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I was talking about He just accepted the fact that what I was praying in French was, you know part of the usual routine of the confession
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But that's that's what was embedded in the Catholic mindset that you had to do these things by rote
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You remembered all these things like the the rosary for instance is a prayer by rote.
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I mean I remember my mother just Taking her rosary beads and praying, you know
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Hail Mary. Hail Mary. Hail Mary so many times because of each each bead in the rosary but that's that's a this
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Legalism and the litany and so forth was a carryover from from Judaism to Catholic Catholicism Some of the things that I never realized it until I studied it
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That if you I don't know if you go into a Catholic Church today and we'll find the eternal flame but in the in the
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Old Testament talks about the the eternal flame before the tabernacle The the priests always kept the flame going in that in front of that tabernacle to indicate that God was present
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That was the the idea behind that Well, the Catholics carried it through and if and the older Catholic Church You might still find the eternal flame in front of the altar
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And they never let that go out 24 hours a day, you know 365 it it just goes on But that's a carryover
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Priests were one one meteor meet one mediator not many in the first Timothy 2 5
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We don't have to go to a priest today to to confess our sins. We can go to direct the
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God We don't need a guy in between one of the things also is statues now
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In the Ten Commandments and in Exodus 20 and icons equivalent in the
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Orthodox Church one of that's one of the things we noticed when Maxine and I toured Greece is one of the things they bring it to are the monasteries and The reason why the monasteries existed you know because when
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Islam was the the Muslims were just taking over they the Southern portion of Europe they conquered
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Greece they conquered portions of what is now Macedonia and Serbia and so forth and Of course a lot of people converted to Islam and you can understand why
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I mean you there was a person You know, you will convert what a spear over your head you either convert or else and they did
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They did convert a lot of them and that a lot of Muslims exist today in Bosnia Herzegovina But That's not the intent of Jesus.
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Jesus wants us to convert out of the heart. He wants us not not by compulsion he doesn't want us to to You know believe in him because somebody holds a spear over our head or a threat.
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He wants us to believe from the heart and one of the things that You know the the
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Old Testament. I guess you'd cast the gates as statues yet.
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That's one of the things a Catholic religion Pushed with statues. I have an uncle who he's dead now, but I said well, how come you go to church, you know?
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He said well, I want to worship God. He says but I can't worship God like I used to And I said why?
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And he says well, he took all the statues out of our new church And I said well what statues got to do with with worshiping
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God and he said well, it just makes it less religious And I said Less religious.
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I mean why and he says well, you know, and I missed the the old Chants by the priests that they they used to chant in Latin Well, what is chance chanting in Latin?
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How does that increase your your religiosity? Shall we say and he says well, it just makes it a much more worshipful service.
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Well, of course, those are all gone today You don't have Chanting by the priests in Latin, you know
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You'll have a lot of the things that existed Before John 23rd when he he opened the doors for for change in the
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Catholic Church But there's still this emphasis on you've got to be
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Catholic. You've got to be baptized to be saved And when my mother died
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Shortly before she died. She did accept the Lord and praise God for that My father never never wanted to have anything do it.
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There's nothing wrong with me I'm okay, and that's that's true of a lot of people today, but my mother finally
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Acknowledged that she needed to believe in Jesus as her Savior and she did but when her funeral took place,
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I was one of the speakers and And Over the the casket of my mother was was they call it a
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Paul a Paul goes over the casket it's a it's a Cloth and with it usually has a big cross on it and the one that covered my mother's casket and says
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I am I am There is only one God. I am the way the truth and the life
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No man cometh to the father, but by me and I said what a significant verse to repeat
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You know in front of the the crowd of people and I said well that that is the the essence of faith today
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If if you don't believe what the Paul has that you you've got to go through Christ He's the only intermedia, he's the only one that can save you and of course the priest was there going oh
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And I mean there's a litany or liturgy liturgy shall we say of the
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Catholic Mass portion of the of the funeral service and Some of it is very scriptural some of it was very good.
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I mean, but I read those things and after the service You know the crowd starts to leave and all of a sudden this guy comes up to me and gives me this big bear hug
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And I and I was I was just in his chest His heads up here and it was
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Mike Abenroth And yeah, and he just he gave me a big hug and he says Fred he says you did a good job
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He says but don't feel bad if their ears were all closed And it and I was a good statement because they're there they're their hearts are not
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Entombed to what the message of God is to the to the the unbeliever Okay, carry on Vote of candles we're getting a little short in time here, but I think
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I can cover everything vote of candles. You know what those are Everybody volunteer
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Oh Vote of candles you'll see it. You've seen them in movies and so forth if you've never been in the
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Catholic Church I don't know if they have much of them anymore But there was a whole array of candle holders and that little candle
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Wick that you you light with a candle that was lit and you'd light whatever candles you had in mind to light and You'd put an offering in the little little box right in front of the vote of candle holder the idea behind this is kind of obscure, but We think that they intended these to be like prayers offered to God for the for the dead and I was really shocked when we were touring
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Germany because we took a tour of Luther's ministry in Germany about three years ago and We went into the church that Luther was baptized in baptized by you know as a baby and they had votive candles
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Gee, I've never seen that in a Protestant Church before of that type and so one of the men asked the the minister who was there and He says well,
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I'm surprised you have votive candles and he says well, we try to accommodate everybody
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We want to make everybody feel comfortable Okay, what a few in case you know, they didn't all here at the
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Fatima Shrine and in Attleboro they have votive candles and in a chapel there that you can you can light up and He's it was a real full type of situation but Indulgences indulgences are those things that today exist
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Martin Luther in his 95 thesis tacked to the wall of the church where he lived in at the time castigated these these
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Indulgences because Rome was trying to get money to build the the the st. Peter's Cathedral and they were selling these indulgences by saying that you know
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You give us money and will the priests and Martin the monks will pray for the dead so that your relatives will get into heaven
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Well purgatory was very new and actually in those times and The indulgences were supposed to get people out of purgatory purgatory is that in -between place that the
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Catholic Church teaches is a Place where the dead go if they've had a lot of sin
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They've got to go to purgatory and have their sin expunged by some kind of penitent punishment before they can go to heaven
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That is so contrary to to true Christianity true Christianity teaches us that once we've we
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Sinned we ask forgiveness for our sin. We are forgiven for our sin It's not that we have to go to some
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Intermediate place to have that sin wiped out That is that is the one of the worst things that I can think of that the
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Catholic Church ever came up with In Fact I still get when my mother died
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I Sent a card to the post office to have them send my first -class mail that she would get to me at my address here
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In West Boylston. Well that petered out after a while, but every once in a while I get this letter from Some some
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Catholic monastery selling these indulgences that you know pray to you know, we will pray to st
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Anthony for you send us $50 or something like that But it still goes on today
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Indulgences have not gone away Sacraments or a formus religious ceremony
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Sacraments if you If you get baptized that's one of the main sacraments of the
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Catholic Church if you get baptized as a chart as a child God has Issued a contract as the
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Catholic Church teachers God made a contract with that person who's been baptized that because of that baptism.
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They're going to go to heaven and this is this is the one of the worst things that people can can believe in as a
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Non -true believer is that just because they were baptized there. They're gonna go to heaven Steve a
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System of works is the patching of something new on to the old wineskin.
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That's a very good analogy But you know the Catholic religion today is a system of works when my granddaughter
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Eloise was born. She was born with a cleft palate now. She didn't have a cleft lip She had a lip that was normal Inside her roof you could you know tip her upside down and see inside her nasal passages
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There was there was nothing up there, you know, and she had trouble eating You know, she could not eat or say take a bottle and breathe, you know at the same time
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She couldn't do that. She'd choke so what they did is they not only put a trach in there, but they put a
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Belly -tube the feeder directly and for something like five years. She went through this this procedure
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Well, we brought her to make a long story short. She ended up in Boston at Children's Hospital and this physician a surgeon looked at her for the first time when
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I was there with my son and Eloise and he said come on Eloise I want to look at you and he put her on his lap backwards and flipped her upside down and he said oh my whoo
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And he says well I can fix it, but it's gonna be a bad a big job Six hours of surgery and she came up and she was whoo all puffed up But then
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I told my neighbor about this this incident today Eloise is fine. She's just a normal little girl
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Well 16 years old not little anymore But I was telling my neighbor about this and I said boy, you know, we're really glad that you know for the
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Internet because my daughter -in -law was supposed to was able to find a doctor who would do this this work and She seems to be very no normal nowadays and he says well
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God's gonna reward that a surgeon for the good work. He's done And I said, well, how does he even know he's a believer?
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Well, he didn't I said well Do you know he's whether he's a believer or not? And he says oh, I have no idea
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But God's gonna reward him anyhow, but that's the mentality. That's the false doctrine. That's the false patch on the wineskin
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The other thing that the Eucharist is It's a term from the
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Greek From the Greek by way of Latin. It means Thanksgiving and it's used in three ways first to reveal
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Refer to the real presence of Christ second to refer to Christ's continuing action as high priest
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And third to refer to the sacrament of Holy Communion itself the main issue with communion in the
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Catholic Church is that the wine literally turns into The blood of Christ now
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Luther You know, he he was he was probably the most influential
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Reformer that in his time in 1517 he put those 95 theses up on the church doorway but later on he defended his his principles of sola scriptura
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Bible only the Scriptures only and Sola fide by faith alone.
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Are you saved not by some contract from no between God and the child?
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There's a whole bunch of things that Luther did for the positive a few
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Negatives is that he still continued infant baptism and in the
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Lutheran Church today you can be Baptized as a child you can be baptized by immersion. They allow that that option
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Congregational church does that too? They allow you to either way is fine The aspect of it.
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Yeah. Yeah, I Don't know either
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I'm sorry, okay
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What what for everybody else in case you didn't hear that on that Eucharist celebration they take a large host
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They put some of them in inside a container and put it and what you know They have a tabernacle at the altar a little box where they put it and that and that time they worship
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They worship God at that time as part of their worship ceremony. That's the Eucharist celebration if I get that, right
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Mantram is it? Okay We're doing pretty good here
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Now Luther and Calvin were contemporary they lived at the same time
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Calvin was in Geneva whereas Luther was in forgot the name of the city, but in Eastern Germany It was an interesting tour to See what
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Luther's life was was like when he was a young man and then being converted as a monk
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He was converted And Convinced by God that what the
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Catholic Church teach it was teaching did not agree with Scripture He found the
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Bible in the library there in the monastery and nobody was reading the
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Bible No one read the Bible. In fact a history teaches that in the early days even during Medieval times a lot of the priests weren't even literate
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They learned everything by rote everything they knew about conducting the mass was learned by rote
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They didn't know didn't eat and they not only did not have a Bible Available to them.
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They could not read it even if they had one but Luther changed that Luther's Donna set up a system where people were were taught how to read enough that they could read the
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Bible and The Bible even in those days was not because of its expense was not broadcast all over wasn't until after Luther was in his several years into his ministry where Gutenberg started printing the
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Bible in German, of course high German and Then it started to become prevalent and this is what aroused the
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Catholic Church Because they they saw this that this was a threat to the priesthood
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Because people could read the Bible and in their eyes misinterpret because They felt that people just could not understand the
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Bible Well people were not dumb back then either. Well, if they could lead and write they could understand the
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Bible Now, you know the just a little side
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When I was converted to Christ I was a young man of 23 When I was in the army and in Louisville, Kentucky at Fort Knox I always like to go out with girls, of course and They had a
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USO dance at the YMCA. I said, oh I went with a bunch of guys and we
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Know dance with some girls and so forth and one girl I danced with was my wife didn't know she was gonna be my wife at the time and The guys at the the fort told me that you know, and they said well, you know
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If you want to find a nice girl, don't don't go to some of the bars around here They said don't don't bother with those floozies, you know
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Go to a church that has a youth group and maybe you can get involved meet some some girls that way Well when
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I was dancing with Maxine, I got to like her and I said, well, what are you doing tomorrow night? She's well tomorrow night.
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I usually go to church church on Sunday night and She said yeah, we have what's called training union
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We read the Bible and we it's it's mainly for the youth and I said, oh boy an opportunity to meet other girls
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So, you know I asked her out and we went to we went to church and the first thing that you know in this fairly large group 25 30 young people and I introduced myself because they asked me to and they looked at me who's this guy with the funny accent and This one guy said well, would you want to read this portion of the
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Bible? And I said it gave me a piece of paper with the scripture on it. Well, I don't know where this is
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About three people came over, you know wanting to show me where it was in the Bible well I read it and of course and one thing led to another and I started coming to church with Maxine on a regular basis and Just a few months later
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Through the ministry of this this pastor. I came to know the Lord But you know growing up as I mentioned, you know at The meeting with the young people in my neighborhood where the young man said, you know
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Protestants have no beliefs and I said something's wrong with that, you know, and as I Went through my teenage years.
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I Started going with people who my friends of mine who went to other churches and I said well that that's false
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These people have beliefs they may not be exactly what the Catholic Church teaches, but they're they have beliefs and I didn't realize it until You know,
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I really came to know Christ as a young man that all these years God was working in my life
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Bing -a -dee -bing -a -dee -bing, you know, he pushed me. He prodded me in ways that I didn't recognize at the time
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This is why today I am a Calvinist is because I know that God was was
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Enticing me or as the Bible teaches us that no man comes to the father set by me
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And that's that's where I said, well God was leading me I mean, I didn't know it but God was leading me to to him and The rest is history
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I'll close this now with the last portion of that. It's in the Page that I Issued other non -biblical aspects of modern
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Christian groups. It's all kinds of error being pushed today and you really have to be open to Criticism like Johnny Hinn and his you know, the people falling backwards and you know, and What do they call it the
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Sun? I forgot the term The slaying of the spirit. Thank you And junk like that, but there's other things that are subtle I mean things like the self -help theology pushed by by Schuller and the
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And one of his writings he says he never calls an unbeliever a sinner Well, his idea is to not irritate people up front calling them a sinner because they don't believe they're sinners even though they know they are and Norman Vincent Peale was and it was one of the
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Important people years ago in his church in New York that he pushed this help help, you know
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It's it's like God helps those who helps themselves type of mentality and that that's not true
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That's not that's not true religion. It's a it's a falsehood and there's others out there who who teaches, you know, spiritual junk that's that's going on the internet today and I know pastor rails against TBN and it rightly so there's a whole lot of stuff on TBN Even though there's some good stuff.
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There's a whole lot of junk out there that you really have to be Careful of how you you handle some of this stuff that's available
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You don't want to put you know, the The new patch onto the old skin, you don't want to have this old religion
55:49
Carried over into your new religion and and I've I've had a young woman that And here in Bethlehem Bible Church some years ago when we were meeting in the mixture school she came to know
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Christ and I Asked her, you know, have you thought about teaching
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Sunday school and she says, oh, I'd love to teach Sunday school and I said well, here's here's some books, you know, you you read the the
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What do you call them the things that? They've published for for teaching
56:22
But that curriculum, thank you. Couldn't think of the word Here's the curriculum, you know, you you read it and see if you want to you want to teach
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Oh next week she came back says I'd love to teach Well, then I Noticed when she really was teaching because I was a
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Sunday school superintendent I'd go around to various classes periodically and peek in and just sit in for a while find out what's going on and She was teaching something other than the curriculum
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And I told him I said, why aren't you following the curriculum because all you're doing is is
56:58
Playing with them, you know giving them things to color and things to do but it's not part of the curriculum.
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Oh She says I think what I've got is better. I Said what do you mean better?
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She says well, I want to make it fun I want to make it interesting for them and I said, but you're not teaching the gospel
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You're just teaching things to do you might as well, you know be having a kindergarten here, you know
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Well, she says well, I was thinking she says I better not teach anymore. I said, well, that's a good idea and Come to find out she left the church and she went back to the
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Catholic Church because she thought that she could have more influence in the Catholic Church Being in that church then going to our church
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So I said well all I have to say to that is, you know you really need to to come to come to Jesus and Really understand what
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Jesus is all about because the Catholic Church doesn't teach that that you know It doesn't teach that you must be born again.
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It doesn't teach that You Go to heaven if you believe in Christ only
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Now that means that doesn't mean that you you that's all there is to it You have to live a life that is worthy of Christ afterwards
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You have to know forsake the sins and ask forgiveness for your sins and so forth like that went right overhead
58:20
Well, she went back to the Catholic Church and Later on we heard that she ended up getting divorced and now it's an unhappy situation after that But you have to be careful even with people that you you ask to teach
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You know, there's needs to be some kind of interview and I strongly support the method that this church has with new
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Believe new members a lot of people. I know people in the past who I know were devout
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Christians didn't believe in church membership My son's church in Vermont, there's a it's a
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Valley Bible Church, it's an independent church That's their philosophy that you don't have to be on the rolls per se to be a member
59:05
But they do interview people if they're going to teach they do interview them find out what where they're coming from up here and Make sure that they're they're able to teach the word
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Okay Lastly first Corinthians 1 21 through 24
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For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God God was well pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to say to save those who believe
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Jews asked for signs Greek search for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified
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To Jews a stumbling block to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are called both
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Jews and Greeks Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God Don't before we close any questions are okay.
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Let's bow and aware prayer Thank you father for this this lesson. Thank you for just a simple parable
01:00:02
But with a message that we cannot impose the old religion on to the new one
01:00:08
We have to come to a a new relationship to Jesus Christ and all these things would pass away
01:00:15
We thank you for these who have come this morning we pray for a good service We pray for a blessing as we partake of communion today
01:00:23
And we just leave the cares of the world upon your shoulders When we pray it in Jesus name